"Painted Florida Palms"
oil on canvas board
by Cindy Mott McGarry
"The human urge to create comes from the play impulse."
- Carla Hannaford
One way to paint more quickly while plein air painting (painting outdoors) is to use a painting knife.
It can be quite enjoyable once an artist has practiced loading paint onto the knife and experimenting with different ways to lay down and spread paint. Covering the canvas can go much faster while trying to capture the current light out in the field. A plein air piece is mostly a study of light, value and color from which a larger work can be created in the studio.
There are quite a variety of palette and painting knives. The painting above was small so I only used Creative Mark knives sizes T2 and an S61to load and spread paint. Knife painting creates thick strokes known as impasto style painting. The paint layers are thick and look as though they are coming out of the canvas. This type of art appears highly textured and can create a wonderful sense of depth.
After a certain amount of paint is laid down and spread with knives a brush can be used to carefully blend the colors to connect the overall design and cover the canvas, but too much blending can ruin the effect of the impasto technique. Sometimes I use an acrylic colored underpainting such as raw sienna, indian yellow or transparent earth red. When the underpainting shows through it can give a glowing appearance and helps unify all parts of the design.
Have fun painting!
Cindy
Cindy
